The Indian Premier League (IPL) brand valuation rose 19 percent to reach $6.3 billion in 2018 from last year’s $5.3 billion. Backed by a renewed channel agreement, a controversial free event, and the existence of franchise-wide marquee teams IPL is an all in one show for brands. The findings were published on Wednesday in Mumbai by Duff & Phelps, a New York-based commercial finance consulting company.
The broadcast rights price, which rose at a compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) of 18.9 percent and was awarded for $2.55 billion by Star India Pvt Ltd (Rs 16,347 crore), enhanced the tournament’s brand value. In September last year, Star India outbid competitors including Sony Pictures Networks India, Facebook Inc., and Bharti Airtel Ltd to bag five years of IPL rights.
Read More: India-Pakistan World Cup game earned Star 100 crore from Ad Revenue
Mumbai Indians on Top
Mumbai Indians were on top of the lists for the third season in a row with a product price of $113 million. Kolkata Knight Riders finished second with a $104 million brand value. The two-year prohibition enforced on the brand values of Chennai Super Kings (CSK) and Rajasthan Royals (RR) has had some impact. The on-field output of CSK and the Dhoni factor, however, assisted them to neutralize the adverse effect. Together with Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB), the combined cost for CSK and RR was $98 million.
Mumbai Indians were top of the lists for the third season in a row with a product price of $113 million (image courtesy: hotstar)
The overall viewership of IPL 11 was 1.4 billion, a 15 percent increase from the prior year’s 1.2 billion. Impressions refer to the number of people who watched an incident in thousands of target audiences, averaging over minutes. A total of 202 million subscribers signed on to Hotstar’s video streaming platform to view IPL 11, an improvement of 55.3 percent from the previous year.
What Duff & Phelps says
“Star India’s broadcast licensing agreement was a game-changer that puts IPL on an equal footing with some of the world’s largest sports leagues (on a cost per game basis),” said Varun Gupta, Managing Director, Duff & Phelps and Asia-Pacific Valuation Services Leader. “The shift in media usage, the advent of over-the-top (OTT) and digital viewing channels and enhanced advertisers favor,” he added.
In 2018, Star India gained around 2,000 crores in advertising revenue, a 54 percent leap from Sony’s 1,300 crores in 2017, the study says. “The top four brands have a definite divide. Good output, marquee player presence and intelligent marketing assisted the top teams,” said Duff & Phelps’ valuation analyst, Santosh N.
In addition, IPL’s 11th season saw the significance of OTT games viewership as an existing and rapidly growing industry. Hotstar, the internet counterpart of IPL, set a record with 10.7 million concurrent subscribers, defeating the 2012 world record for Felix Baumgartner’s space jump of over 8 million concurrent spectators retained by YouTube. This rise in IPL internet streaming and the rise in OTT’s momentum as a medium for watching internet games was also one of the main reasons businesses were willing to obtain digital rights to stream IPL.
In the meantime, social media remained a significant brand value engine. The IPL’s first week of the previous season gained 642,900 references on social media sites, which in the first week of the 2018 season increased to 855,400, and after two seasons to 1,3 million.
Star India purchased worldwide television rights over the next five years in 2017, including digital for Rs 16,34,750 crore ($2.55 billion).
Further reading:
Century for Hotstar, crosses 100 million user mark during Ind vs Pak
